Monday, April 30, 2012

Mona El Tahawy’s latest
article in Foreign Policy has provoked a firestorm of controversy in the
blogosphere. Her provocative title “Why do they hate us?” evoked the much-loathed
question posed by Bernard Lewis in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks of why the Middle East hates America. Perhaps therein lies one of the many contentious
issues with what is otherwise a well-written essay. The use of the word “Hate”
is harsh and is devoid of any explanatory value. It is also emotional and not
based on an objective assessment of the plight of women in the MENA region.
However, El Tahawy’s use is obviously intended to shock its readership into
pondering what is arguably one of the most abysmal records of women’s rights in
the world.

Most of the response so far have centered on stylistic
issues with the use of the word “fear” and the use of the naked images of
body-painted niqab, which many argued evokes orientalist stereotypes of the
Middle East. No one seems to dispute the litany of statistics that El Tahawy
quotes in the article, which paint a rather depressing, but accurate picture of
the status of women in MENA. Perhaps we are shocked because honestly very few
of us knew, for example, that 90% of all ever-married Egyptian women underwent
female genital mutilation, or that 80% of Egyptian women have been sexually
harassed. This is in addition to the litany of reports on women’s status in the
MENA that are frankly embarrassing and immoral.

When I read the article and saw the images of the naked
woman body-painted in niqab, I was struck by the boldness of the tone and tenor
of the article. Mona’s juxtaposition between the “us”--downtrodden oppressed
women-- against “them” –the oppressive, misogynistic Arab Muslim men--bifurcates
MENA societies in parallel segregated realms, where men in the different
contexts that she enumerates consciously reject equality for women simply
because they hate females. This is, in and of itself, a meaningless argument,
because it tells us little about the micro dynamics of gender relations in the
region. More importantly, El Tahawy should have looked at more in-depth
socio-political reasons for such a plight. Many scholars have provided sound
and research-based analysis of women’s status in the MENA. Of particular note
are the excellent studies of Leila Ahmed’s Women
and Gender in Islam , and Nikki Keddie’s Women
in the Middle East.

Having been on a panel with El Tahawy, I know that she is
well-versed in feminist literature on the MENA and is not, as some suggested in
their rejoinders, ill-informed. Mona El Tahawy is an opinion writer and as such,
she has sought to provoke a debate about the issue of empowerment and the lack
of socio-economic and political equal opportunities for women. The article
could have been less harsh in its blanket indictment of all Middle Eastern Arab
Muslim men, for that is hardly a fact and should not be taken by all as one. It
is a heuristic device used by Mona to illustrate the misogynistic posture of
Arab Muslim men. Misogyny after all results from contempt and tradition, but
also from ignorance of one’s faith.

The issue of liberation of women does not solely hinge on the use of niqab or veil, which is fetishized in the images that accompanied
the article in Foreign Policy (though
one cannot be sure if El Tahawy chose the images or if that was an editorial
decision). It is a policy issue that has to be targeted through active steps
that involve state and civil society leaders. Liberation and freedom do not
mean a rejection of women’s niqab as oppressive, since there are many women
that wear it out of conviction. True liberation is to allow for choice, but not
condemn the outcome of that choice if it is contrary to our own biased, skewed,
often times western-tainted views of what women empowerment should look like.

I have to acknowledge that I am not a female, but I am
Muslim and Arab, and have had a fair amount of interaction with women leaders,
especially in Morocco, which El Tahawy singles out as lacking in true progress
for women. It is difficult to argue against that position, for indeed Morocco
has a long way to go in the areas of female empowerment and equality. The
recent case of Amina Filali, who took her own life after being forced to marry
her rapist due to an unjust loophole in the Moroccan penal code, is a testament
to the distance that Morocco has still to cover to grant women their full human
rights. Morocco, however, has one of the most vibrant and active women’s
movements and organizations in the region. In the past decade, the work of
organizations such as the Democratic Association of Women of Morocco (ADFM) and
the Feminine Action Union (UAF) have been integral in bringing about laudable
changes to the Mudwanna (family
code). They have also articulated new discourses of women’s rights and adopted
independent frameworks away from sterile party politics in Morocco.

Elsewhere women (veiled and unveiled) have been part of the
nascent Middle East awakening: for instance, there are Brave
women such as activist Lina Ben Mhenni in Tunisia, whose blog’s fiery
rhetoric was instrumental in mobilizing Tunisian against the tyrannical regime
of Ben ‘Ali; or Asmaa Mahfouz in Egypt, whose eloquent video on YouTube against
the regime of Mubarak, calling on Egyptians to join Tahrir Square was key in fomenting
the revolution in Egypt; or, the case of Tal Al-Molouhi in Syria, who stood
tall against the repressive regime of al-Assad and was steadfast in her
challenge to the regime until her arrest in February 2011; or, journalist and
activist, Tawakkol Karman, better known as the “mother of the Revolution” in
Yemen and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011, who organized student
rallies and protests against the regime of Ali Abdallah Saleh.

Mona El Tahawy’s article will surely be subject to more and
more controversy, and that is exactly her intention as an opinion journalist.
She has succeeded in crafting a well-written essay, backed with impressive
statistics. However, El Tahawy also revels in a broad narrative that conjures
up long despised stereotypes about the status of women and gender relations in
the Middle East. Her essay has been successful in inciting the intellectual
furor of many in and outside the region. This is the sort of debate that we
need to increasingly have, both as Arabs and as Muslims. However, these debates
should not turn into personal attacks on the author, no matter how passionately
we feel about the content and images in the Foreign
Policy article.